Pretending
by thisdarkpassenger
Summary: "she shakes her head and pretends its' not real. She's perfected the art of pretending, just like in high school when she stayed with Nate because it was safer." Gossip Girl AU. One Shot


AN: This is an AU One Shot. Don't hate because you don't like the ships or end game

The day Blair sees Serena home from the hospital holding a baby, something inside her twists. She calls in sick at work and sits on the kitchen floor, eating her weight in sadness and carbohydrates but she doesn't shed a single tear until Nate comes home, and sits next to her, holds her hand. His legs stretch out all over the place and he used to have a way of making her feel safe, a long time ago, but now, now she can't feel anything with him. She cries and he just holds her, but he doesn't ask what's wrong. They both know, they know that just because they're together now doesn't mean they're supposed to be. It's all about second choices.

It began differently in high school. Serena _never_ would have been Chuck's first choice. He knows she loved Nate sometime in high school. She spent her days with Nate and her nights with Chuck. He didn't care she was using him, he was too drunk on Blair for it to matter, she was _his_ first choice. But then Blair made it clear she was _in_ love with Nate, and Nate made it clear he was _in_ love with Blair, and Serena and Chuck fell into a second pattern of sleepless days and nights, trying to forget.

Junior year, Serena woke up next to him and never left, giggling non-stop with tousled blonde hair, and he's never wanted somebody else since. He brushes her hair back from her eyes every night and sees her, really _sees_ her, and she grins and steals all the covers. They finish each other's sentences and they know each other better than they know themselves and they dance together in the living room; their children peek out from by the staircase and swoon at the romance of it _all._

Serena's never doubted she's spending her happily ever after with the right boy, even years _years_ later. She may have wanted Nate originally but she hit every milestone with Chuck. The first kiss was while they were drunk on champagne after one of his famous blow out parties, the first time she saw Nate holding Blair's hand, she feigned sick for the first time and came home. Minutes later, Chuck came with ice cream, and and her favorite movie, and they spent the day in bed for the first time. The first best kiss was when they realized there _is_ no one else. It's his hand she wants to hold _everywhere_ , everywhere since she first learned what home really is, the hand she _never_ wants to let go of.

The first time they spent the summer together. It's _just_ them, Chuck and Serena, no interruptions, and all the wonderful summer things that they love. They spend some time in the city, and then when that gets too hot, they go to the Hamptons. When they get bored of the Hamptons, they head back get high and wasted, they go out to breakfast together with messy hair, wearing dark sunglasses, and leave twenty-dollar tips entirely in quarters just because they can. They stay up until the sun rises and they dance on Chuck's bed in their underwear and watch movies on his big-screen TV and splash around in his hot tub. and one day she wakes up to find a present sitting by the bed and discovers that he's bought her a scarf of her own; _so you can stop stealing mine, bitch_.

Nate isn't as stupid as everyone believes. He notices the changes between everyone then, how Blair darkens in a room when Chuck walks in holding Serena's hand, his thumb circling her palm, tracing hearts. He sees the looks his _best_ friend sneaks her when she isn't looking, the way his arm circles her waist, the way he kisses the side of her forehead _just_ because he can. He assumes its' a phase they're going through, they can't _be_ serious. They're the worst couple, they argue and fight; they never agree on anything and between the two of them, there's _always_ some kind of temper tantrum. But the days pass, he attempts to serenade her, the weeks, they kiss _everywhere_ , the weeks turn into months, she's wearing his shirts, scarves and sweaters, and the relationship doesn't end.

That spring day Serena ran down from the bleachers, her hair flying everywhere behind her, she was running and running, she was _flying_ , and Nate was sure she was _finally_ running to him, she woke up to her senses, she was _the_ one, when he blinked and she was hugging the wrong boy, all _over_ again. He's never been jealous of his best friend, not until the day _the_ girl picked the _other_ boy.

High school comes and goes, the four graduate and the happy photographs hide everything underneath. They keep in touch for college, ignoring the lingering awkwardness. Two years after graduation, the four of them take a weekend away together in the summer house, and everyone is happy; it _almost_ feels like old times. Until Chuck surprises her one morning and proposes on the sand and she didn't let him get in a _single_ word, and just jumped and kept saying _yes._ She toppled him on the sand, and Nate and Blair clap and smile, and once back at the house, they claim work engagements and family problems, and other excuses and catch the first train away, away from the fairy tale they're never going to live. They can't bear to watch the happiness they're never going to be a part of.

The day Serena and Chuck have their engagement party, the foursome reunite again; all four have smiles but only two are genuine. Blair tries to kiss Chuck during the party, when she corners him in the kitchen, and whispers if he ever thinks of her, if he'd go back and change anything, and he looks at her, like he doesn't _even_ know her, and he walks back to his fiancée, he walks home to Serena because he's marrying _her_. Nate and Blair plaster their fake smiles long enough until the last guest leaves and the night ends, and proceed to drink enough alcohol, separately, to stay hungover for a week. It's enough to dull them emotionally but its' never enough to dull the reality of the situation. Alcohol covers the lies for only so long.

Later that year, Nate is Chuck's best man, _of course_ , and the day she walks down the aisle to someone else, he pretends it's him she's walking to. She's barefoot on the beach sand, the same sand where someone _else_ proposed, and she's smiling, she has the grin that makes him stumble _every_ time he sees it. He imagines the white picket fence and the soccer rehearsals, the little girl with her mom's eyes and the twins with their dad's smile, the grumpy cat, the home they could build. He wants to say something to stop this but he _can't_ , and he doesn't, and when Chuck kisses her 'I do', actually marries Serena, Nate wakes up long enough for something inside him to die.

The wedding is beautiful, and the toasts make everyone cry. Chuck sweeps Serena for their first dance, and his hand is in hers, like it's been there all along, and there's _something_ about them that no one can describe. Nate dances with Blair at the reception for old times sake, he doesn't feel anything with her hand in his but come the end of the night, he asks her out anyway. They date and date but he doesn't propose marriage until he's sure there's no alternative, that Serena and Chuck are not getting a divorce anytime soon, not when they love each other as much as they do.

When Blair walks down that aisle, she imagines it's to the best man, not to the groom. She glances at Chuck out of the corner of her eye, and he doesn't make eye contact, he wasn't _even_ looking at her walk. She focuses back on Nate and wonders how to spend _forever_ with the wrong one. She makes it to the front of the church and Nate is looking at her, and she sees Chuck behind him making eye contact with her maid of honor, and she pretends that smile was for her, not for his wife behind _her_ , and she makes it through the ceremony with flying colors. Nate kisses her at the appropriate time and Blair forces herself to kiss back, convincing herself, this is what she's _always_ wanted, this is _who_ she's always wanted.

Nate watched Blair come down the aisle that day, she was beautiful, and brunette and she has an edge Serena doesn't replicate. She's supposed to have been the one since high school, since when they were attending each other's games and he was winning and she was cheering, when they walked through the school like leaders, when he threw paper airplanes at her in art class but sometimes, she doesn't feel like _the_ one. The next day, the next morning he wakes up next to a head of dark hair, and he's disappointed its' not _hers._ He rolls over to the other side and he wonders where Serena is, and if she's happy as she looks, as everyone says she is.

Months later, the day of Bass housewarming party; three kids later, they _had_ to move, Blair catches Serena and Chuck trying to christen _their_ kitchen counter, she stammers an apology and locks herself in the nearest bathroom and vomits for an hour. The moment she thinks there's nothing more to come, she's blindsided when it rises to the top and the cycle starts again. She can't stop the projector playing in her head, the way Serena's legs are wrapped around Chuck, the way his hand touched her face, he's _still_ so in love with her after all these years, and she wonders where it all went wrong, why she let him go when she _had_ him.

The next day, she learns she's pregnant and Nate says all the right things and makes all the right midnight runs, but she catches looks from him sometimes, but she shakes her head and pretends its' not real. She's perfected the art of pretending, just like in high school when she stayed with Nate because it was safer.

The four grow, and they build families and homes, and two learn sometimes its' best to pretend. They spend a lifetime together, the four of them, as friends and they were _so_ lucky to find each other, but not lucky enough to end up with the right one.


End file.
